"They have exhorted me to courage, that I should have fortitude in the presence of mine enemies." And when they would have pressed her still further with their questioning, she cried out suddenly: "O, I can tell you no more. How should I make you understand? Though you may punish me for my silence, I have less fear of displeasing you than I have of hurting by so much as one word of mine them that be with me." One day, Stafford and Warwick and Jean de Luxembourg came to visit her where she lay in her cell. And Jean de Luxembourg, mocking her, said he came to ransom her, on condition she vowed never after to bear arms against the English King. "God tells me you are deceiving me," Joan answered, "for I know well you have neither the power nor the will to do as you say. Furthermore, I know the English will put me to death, for they think, by so doing they will be able to possess the kingdom of France. But I know of a surety that if they were stronger by a hundred thousand men, yet France shall not be theirs." Her words infuriated Stafford, who would have slain her on the spot if the other generals had not held him. One day when Joan was returning under an armed escort from the Judiciary where her trial was proceeding, she passed a church. The door was closed, and she begged of the monk in whose charge she was, to let her kneel for a time in prayer outside it; for those in authority over her, seeking how best they could grieve her, no longer allowed her within the precincts of the House of God. But when this came to the knowledge of Cauchon, the Bishop, he threatened her guard with the most rigorous punishment if such a thing were ever permitted again. Now the patience of the English was fast becoming exhausted. They considered the trial was being unnecessarily prolonged. They accused the lawyers of not fairly conducting the case. Once again Joan was taken before the prelates and high dignitaries of the Church to make her defence, and a vast assembly gathered to hear her. "I sought out the King," Joan said, " because I had a message for him, and the message was from God, who sent me. And in fulfilling this, I have but obeyed the voices of the blessed Company of Heaven. To these, and to no less a tribunal do I submit myself, in all that I have done, and in all there yet remains for me to do. You constitute yourselves my judges; but if you judge me, have a care, lest you set yourselves in great danger, for I am of God." And while she spoke these words, as if standing alone upon a rock with so cold a sea of unfriendly faces round her, suddenly the sun shone out, flooding the room with light; and striking full on the stone mullion and transom of the window, cast upon the floor the shadow of a cross. Joan was condemned to death. They called her heretic, apostate, witch, idolatress; and as such they decreed she must meet her death at the stake in the Old Market Place of Rouen. On 30th of May they led Joan to execution. When she reached the pile of faggots she kneeled down and prayed. In some books that tell Joan's beautiful story they say she asked for a crucifix, and among all the crowd assembled to see her die, one man bound two pieces of wood together, and gave them to her; them to her; and he was an English soldier. We, as a nation, were her enemies, though not so deeply as were those of her own country who worked her fall; and we may remember this English soldier and be glad. At the moment of her death it is said a strange spirit stirred the multitude. The judges who had passed sentence on her were filled with dread. "It is a saint who has been burned," the people said, and many fled the place. Thus died Joan of Arc, but her story will live as long as there are human hearts to know it. CHAUCER A pebble for a mighty cairn. CHAUCER is a poet whose writings people either know well or else very little, for he is hedged about by the wall of archaic English. Those to whom this presents little difficulty can reach back through the ages that have passed since Chaucer was alive, and in the large quantity of work he has left behind find themselves very close to him. It is the only way in which we can approach him, for with Chaucer, as with Shakespeare, we know little about the facts of his outer life. Literary controversy has swayed backwards and forwards upon this theme with small result beyond affording a few students the quiet pleasure of attempting to prove each other wrong. The knowledge of Chaucer's birth remains inexact, so that we do not know his age when he died, but it is supposed to have been some time between 1340 and 1345. The generally accepted date of Chaucer's death is October 15th, 1400, and there is no reason to doubt its accuracy as no pension was paid to him later. His life thus covers little more than the interval between the most glorious period of Edward III's reign and the downfall in 1399 of Richard II. The image we bear of him in our minds shows us a hooded dark-robed figure with grey hair and divided beard, a string of beads in one hand, the other extended as if in admonition or narration, and with what he himself describes as a penner or pencase suspended from his belt. This is from a portrait by Occleve, and it is found in an early copy of Chaucer's poems, painted from memory after Chaucer's death. Over the figure is written in the same hand-writing as the other poems the words, " Chaucer's Ymage "; a word pleasing in appearance, spelt with a Y. The allusions to Chaucer by both Occleve and Gower are loving tributes. This landës very tresour and richesse, Lydgate, who lived in the next generation, casts no light on the facts of Chaucer's life, the discovery of which have become antiquarian's puzzles, but he gives a valuable list of his poems; valuable in so far as it sets such as he mentions beyond the power of pedants whose busy care it is to deny to many Chaucer's authorship. My master Chaucer with his fresh comédies Some of disporte, including great sentence |